My granddaughter reposted the following missive on Facebook, “Let’s take a moment to honor the sacrifice of our brave school children who lay down their lives to protect our right to bear arms.” These words reflect so aptly the anger and frustration felt about the murder of 19 fourth-grade students and two of their teachers at Uvalde School in Texas.
This latest slaughter of innocent children is especially gut-wrenching, and it’s getting more difficult every day to grapple with America’s gun problem. Our shame is compounded by shocked reaction around the world. An editorial in a French newspaper proclaimed, “America is killing itself and the Republican Party is looking the other way.”
The world thinks America is nuts.
I’m trying to understand this devotion to the Second Amendment, but it’s complicated by my genuine aversion to firearms. I’m trying to understand where gun owners are coming from, because until we appreciate their views, we will never find solutions to the killing that is destroying our security.
Gun owners must be involved in searching for solutions. It should not be left to politicians who accept millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the NRA (National Rifle Association). The totality of Republican Senators who receive major support from the NRA, including Iowa’s two Senators, Ernst and Grassley, is appalling. Not surprisingly, Republican Senators nearly always vote against gun control legislation. Their allegiance to the NRA is indefensible since the organization stands for little else but to help gun manufacturers earn huge profits.
I would happily get rid of all AR-15 weapons, but many Americans – including my son—own them. It’s a struggle for me to understand the attraction for these killing machines, but for avid gun collectors and hunters, an AR-15 is often part of their arsenal.
Despite my son’s collection, he supports strict laws that prevent teenage, disturbed, immature loners from buying high-powered guns and ammunition. He is opposed to open-carry. He would never take his gun into a crowd. He would never use his gun to threaten protestors, and never fire his gun at another human being, except in self-defense.
My son resents the power of the gun lobby, and dropped his NRA membership years ago when he realized their only motivation is greed.
The Second Amendment reads, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment to prevent the formation of a standing army like we have today. They feared being overthrown by the military and preferred having individual citizens organized as a militia.
In a 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 decision, that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms independent of service to a state militia, and to use firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense within the home.
That decision was a huge victory for gun owners and, today, America has more guns than people. The United States, with only 5% of the world’s population, has 46% of the world’s civilian-owned guns.
And today, the leading cause of death among children is gun violence.
Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1991 saw things differently. “The idea that there was a personal right to bear arms embedded in the Second Amendment was fraud,” he said. “The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure the militia would defend the state. This fraud has been perpetrated on the American people by special interest groups: gun manufacturers and the NRA.”
The careless sale of dangerous weapons should never be allowed, especially those as lethal as an AR-15. The United States is saturated with guns, but we have to accept the fact that many Americans love their guns. We need to listen to them and enlist their help in making things safer. We need to get their ideas about how to regulate universal background checks, assault weapons, high performance ammunition, ghost guns, red-flag protection and gun-show sales.
We’re not getting anywhere with anger and frustration, and we are constantly blocked by politicians whose main concern is keeping NRA money flowing to their campaigns.
Our first task is to vote them out of office.